Pulling the Strings

So your organization failed a compliance audit and got slapped with fines and penalties. Bummer! You pay the fine, spend a few days fixing your configurations, run a scan, and get ready to do it again come the next audit. But that approach doesn’t work anymore: The risks are too high, and fixing months of configuration drift at the drop of a hat (let alone hunting down all the paperwork for auditors) certainly isn’t your team’s favorite thing to do.

Demo Puppet Comply + CEM for cross-department visibility and automated compliance

The broad scope of today’s compliance management requires a coordinated effort from more than just the security team. In this episode of Pulling the Strings, two Puppet compliance experts make the case for cooperation among security, compliance, ops, and just about everyone else in your organization. They discuss the crumbling walls between security, compliance, and ops, as well as tools organizations use to ensure continuous compliance.

Highlights:

• Why organizations always wait until something goes wrong to pay attention to compliance + security
• The simple micro-adjustments that prevent massive corrections come audit time
• Working toward better alignment between teams so that they’re making compliance easier
• The point and benefits of continuous compliance – and why ‘cowboy compliance’ isn’t enough
• Why compliance frameworks matter across security, compliance, and ops

Speakers:

• Ben Ford, Community Lead at Puppet by Perforce
• Claire McDyre, Senior Product Manager at Puppet by Perforce
• Robin Tatam, Senior Director of Product Marketing, Puppet by Perforce

Links:

• Try Puppet Comply + CEM to give your whole team the power to tackle compliance
• Read Claire’s content on the Puppet blog
• Read Robin’s content on the Puppet blog
• Read the episode transcript

Find Us Online:

• puppet.com
• Apple Podcasts
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Modules are the basic building blocks of Puppet. They're made to solve common challenges, extend functionality, and optimize your use of Puppet. They're also reusable and shareable – you can find thousands on the Puppet Forge – and best of all, anyone can make them. But what does that really mean?

On this episode of Pulling the Strings, Ben Ford sits down with Yeshua Hall to talk about Yeshua’s experience building the Puppet module known as zend_common, initially released in December 2022.

Highlights:

• How to build a Puppet module
• What zend_common does
• What to know before you start building

Highlights:

• How to build a Puppet module
• What zend_common does
• What to know before you start building

Speakers:

• Ben Ford, Community Lead at Puppet by Perforce
• Yeshua Hall, Senior Solutions Architect at Perforce

Links:

• Download the free guide, “How to Start Automating in a Few Steps with Bolt”
• Download zend_common on the Puppet Forge
• Follow Yeshua Hall on Twitter
• Follow Ben Ford on Twitter
• Read the episode transcript

Find Us Online:

• puppet.com
• Apple Podcasts
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Supposedly, Albert Einstein once said, “If you can't explain it to a six-year-old, then you don't understand it yourself.” That might be a bit harsh, but it holds true for teaching just about anything: You’ve got to meet learners where they are. That’s why Puppet recently launched new on-demand training courses and more. There’s a new, engaging way to learn how to do things with Puppet without going down too many rabbit holes.

On this episode of Pulling the Strings, Ben Ford interviews Principal Training Solutions Engineers Jain Waldrip and Tom Chisholm about designing training with “highly calibrated visuals,” the exciting new avenues for Puppet learners, and much more.

Highlights:

• What’s led Jain and Tom to their roles in Puppet training
• What you can expect from Puppet’s new on-demand training courses 
• Introducing Puppet Console Overview, an interactive, guided tour of the Puppet Console

Speakers:

• Ben Ford, Community Lead at Puppet by Perforce
• Jain Waldrip, Principal Training Solutions Engineer at Puppet by Perforce
• Tom Chisholm, Principal Training Solutions Engineer at Puppet by Perforce

Links:

• Take new on-demand Puppet training courses
• Check out the PE Console Overview
• Get in touch with the Puppet education team at [email protected]
• Join Jain and Tom in the Puppet Community Slack
• Read the episode transcript

Find Us Online:

• puppet.com
• Apple Podcasts
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

“It doesn't matter how small the contribution is – I think everyone benefits from the different environment, the different culture, of open source communities.” From ‘free software’ to the Mars Rover, the scope of open source is expansive, growing, and offering new challenges to organizations and practitioners alike. Now, Perforce Director of Product Management Javier Perez is excited to share the latest findings from the 2023 State of Open Source Report with the context of his 26+ years in the software industry. Look into the past and peer into the future with this exciting discussion between two open source evangelists.

Join Javier and host Ben Ford, Developer Relations Director at Puppet by Perforce, as they discuss the history of open source, examples of open source software dating back to the 1950s, the communities that have formed around open source, where open source software is headed, and highlights from the highly anticipated 2023 State of Open Source Report, which asked ~900 global respondents about their use of open source software.

Highlights:

• AI and machine learning took the number one spot as a technology that most survey respondents were interested in.
• The number-one reason organizations use open source software is access to innovation — not cost savings.
• How initiatives intra-organization methodologies like InnerSource are breaking down silos between companies.
• Why AI and Web3 are trends worth watching in the open source space.

Speakers:

• Ben Ford, Developer Relations Director at Puppet by Perforce
• Javier Perez, Director of Product Management at Perforce

Links:

• Get the 2023 State of Open Source Report
• Follow Javier on Twitter
• Read the episode transcript

Find Us Online:

• puppet.com
• Apple Podcasts
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

In this episode, join special guests Nigel Kersten, KasparvonGrünberg, Fatih Degirmenci, and Ronan Keenan as they discuss the recent surge in popularity of platform engineering and how these teams are fast becoming vital to enterprise success. 

In this panel discussion they explore: 

• The history and advent of platform engineering
• What platform engineering looks like today
• Where to get started in platform teams
• 3 key fallacies to avoid to ensure success

Creating and maintaining community is hard, especially when you don't bump into each other in the hallways on the regular. And community is vital, especially when it advocates for you and helps create a safe space to bring your whole self to work. Todd and Melissa share their experiences with Puppet's Pride ERG and how they're using it to work towards systemic change.

Learn More:

• Join our community at https://slack.puppet.com
• Find Melissa on Twitter as @mcasburn or on LinkedIn
• Find Todd on Twitter as @ShawnTErvin or on LinkedIn

Managing the configuration of an entire ecosystem is not an easy thing to do, and bootstrapping the system that manages that configuration is even more challenging. Edwin from Puppet’s Solutions Architects team shows us a tool they've built that aims to simplify that task.

Learn more:

• Join our community at https://slack.puppet.com and chat with Edwin.
• Try out the module from its Forge page and file any issues on the linked source repository.
• Using Process Mapping to target your automation efforts.
• Find Edwin on Twitter here.

CentOS has become the de facto standard operating system for many organizations since it’s basically the same thing as RHEL, rebranded and without commercial support.

CentOS was originally a community project, but over time Red Hat has become more influential in its direction and has shifted it to a "Stream" model, effectively moving CentOS 8 from being a downstream release (built after RHEL) to an upstream release (built before RHEL). This isn't exactly suitable for production use and thus many users are looking for alternatives.

Paul joins us today to share insights and give some advice on how you can evaluate your options and migrate your infrastructure as painlessly as possible.

Learn more:

• Join our community at https://slack.puppet.com.
• Read the blog post this podcast references.
• Try out Paul's module.

Cortez worked his way up through the ranks as a cloud security and compliance engineer, managing hundreds of production applications. Now he's taking those grueling lessons and teaching the team at Relay how to automate away tedium and toil. Join us as Cortez shares stories from the field and some of the motivation behind Relay's cloud compliance enforcement capabilities.

Learn more: 

• Join our community at https://slack.puppet.com
• Find more about Relay at https://relay.sh
• Let us know about new integration ideas at https://pup.pt/ideas
• Find Cortez on LinkedIn

The recent log4j fiasco reminded us that not only is it important to stay updated and current with security news, but it's also critical to have safe ways to deploy configuration updates or orchestrate reporting/remediation scripts across your infrastructure as quickly as possible. Jeremy and Nick join us today to share best practices and automation suggestions.

Learn more:

• Join our community at https://slack.puppet.com
• Contribute to the module at https://github.com/puppetlabs/log4jscanner
• Download the module from its Forge page: http://forge.puppet.com/puppetlabs/log4jscanner
• Read about Puppet's security response policies https://puppet.com/security/
• Reach Jeremy Mill on Twitter at @living_syn

Update: the GI Joe quote our hapless host massacred was  – "Now you know; and knowing is half the battle."